10.09.15
First Crossrail Aventra bodyshell completed at Bombardier plant
The production of Crossrail trains has reached “an important milestone” with the completion of the first Aventra bodyshell at Bombardier’s train manufacturing plant in Derby.
The test carriage is being used to refine the design and manufacturing techniques needed for the production of 594 carriages making up 66 Crossrail trains.
Joe Bednall, Bombardier’s project director, said: “This assembled bodyshell, which has progressed rapidly from a blank piece of paper through to build and test, is the first off the production line for the Crossrail project. It will first go to be tested, to validate the body shell design, before being painted and re-assembled to form the client’s cab and saloon mock-up.
“The on-time completion of this new lightweight body shell design marks an important milestone in the ongoing successful delivery of the Crossrail project.”
Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin added that the new trains showcase British engineering “at its best”.
The 200m-long trains will provide space for up to 1,500 passengers, to relieve congestion on east-west London journeys and beyond into Berkshire in the west and Essex in the east.
They will have wide interconnecting gangways and three double doors on each side of each carriage ensuring high capacity and quick boarding times vital to busy central stations.
The first trains will operate between Liverpool Street and Shenfield from May 2017, extended to the central section in 2018 ahead of the full Crossrail route from Reading and Heathrow in the west to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east, set for 2019.
Crossrail has already completed the tunnelling works for the £14.8bn east-west railway, with 26 miles of new train tunnels created under the capital.
Tunnelling began in the summer of 2012 and ended at Farringdon with the breakthrough of tunnelling machine Victoria. During that time, eight 1,000 tonne tunnelling machines have bored 26 miles of new 6.2 diameter rail tunnels.
In late July, work began in three key areas of the surface section of the Crossrail Anglia route, comprising a 16.4-mile section from Stratford in east London to Shenfield in Essex.